Resurrection
by necronisms
Summary: It's been nearly thirty years since Gary Lester's death, and he suddenly finds himself awake and intact in an alley way after a mall goth group's summoning spell went well. However, no matter how much Gary distances himself from himself and his past, John Constantine will find a way to discover Gary's well-being.
1. Revival

The party dispersed at midnight, terrified of their findings. They were young and naive and it at all expecting their old spells and worshipping to be answered. It was the hour of a new dawn, when the world's between the ethereal and the living were at their thinnest. A mistake had been made, blood had been spilled, just a drop, and now a body lay in the middle of a crudely drawn summoning circle. Chalk cluttered behind the shoes of one boy, but they were all gone before they bothered to check the summoned body.

It didn't stir for a few hours, only lightly breathing and shivering whenever a wind would blow. In this alley, there was a lot of that, and the body was stirred soon after. They sat upright, dizzy, looking at their hands covered in blood. There was blood everywhere, in fact, and his body was drenched and cold. It clotted under his fingernails and he grimaced. His long hair was matted to his cheeks and down his spine. The blood had been tracked out if the circle and onto the pavement and road, so thick he could see it disappearing around the corner.

 _Gary must have looked like a right murder victim if ever there was one._

It took a few more hours for him to stand back up in his legs, wobbling about like a newborn deer. He used the wall for support. The brick was cool to the touch. It was nice to feel the cold and the texture. No more heat or molten rock. No more screaming or crying or his own thoughts clawing at the inside of his head to get out.

There was only this: the sounds of a waking city and starting cars. No one was out walking yet, and it was just dark enough that Gary felt alright forcing himself onto the main sidewalks looking the way he did.

Where was he supposed to go? How long since he had last seen the living world through eyes that weren't already dead or dying? How long since he had last tried to reach this world at all?

Thinking alone wasn't going to help him. He could see his reflection in the windows he hobbled past. Still the same, skinny man lacking in frame and defined by his parlor. Those eyes, blue as they were, had seen decades of hardship both in and out of Hell. He fondly touched the glass, glad to feel something pushing back rather than letting him slip through like a ghost.

A scream split his thought. His eyes focused and he could see something standing across the street. Someone had been awake enough to find him. Call it fate, perhaps. Gary didn't know how to respond, or tell them that he was alright. They were already rushing over, something in their hand, until they held it to their face, the other reaching to Gary. Was he supposed to take it or simply look at it? He was exhausted already, legs giving out. He slid to his knees and stayed put. With his vision already failing, he could have sworn this was death meeting him again. The same sensation of an overwhelming sense of dread. Followed by nausea.

His eyes took some coaxing to open, and he was rather found of the quiet darkness that lay behind them. But he was so sure he wasn't quite dead again. No familiar taunting shrieks or burning hands grabbing at his tattered clothes and ankles to bring him back down.

No, now that he was looking and letting his eyes focus, he was surrounded by white. Ah, a wish granted long ago? Was it Heaven?

The sheet of white was quickly disturbed and a man stood above him. Gary cringed as he felt a pressure in his arm and he looked down, seeing that a few thin tubes were being toyed with. He tried to urge the man to stop, only to realize that… it had only been that long since he had been in an hospital.

"You're going to be fine," the man said, or something along those lines, Gary was too out of it to comprehend. Then the calm sheet if white returned to him. And he gazed at it fondly for the next two weeks, never minding the poking or prodding.

It was the feeling sober, coming off of the new medication that proved more difficult than walking in his own body for the first time in years. He was often forced to sit up go eat solid foods, treated like a baby but never being told exactly why he could take care of himself. Although his arms felt heavy, they worked fine and could not even lift his own body weight when he had to move himself to the wheelchair. Each day they grew stronger as he wheeled himself to and from the bathroom, sometimes to the door to see if he could yet open the door. All the magic in the world, he now knew, and yet this barrier perplexed him.

Sometimes he had a roommate, sometimes he did not. They were young, old, in critical condition or there because they said they were lost. No one was afraid of Gary and he liked that, but they did not treat him any better than the nurses when they saw that he was in a wheelchair. It was what motivated him to get back to walking. All that effort out of the circle coming back to him, leaving him on the floor with embarrassed tears in his eyes, to be followed by confusion, denial that this was how terribly it felt to cry again. Physical therapy only angered him further, but as another few weeks passed, he was absolutely fine stunning his nurses by getting out of the chair to try the handle on the door again.

It was always locked, and he never knew why.

Until he was taken out of the room and saw what became of the other patients. They seemed rather self reliant, but he knew the clothes they wore; the clothes he remembered John Constantine himself stripping out of in turn for his old clothes society gave him. They were all prisoners of their own addictions. And Gary tried to tell the nurses that this was a mistake, but they told him there had been no mistaking his toxin reports. All those years and his old body had reverted, and now he was trapped here.

They told him that he had been a part of some brainwashing cult, that they had drugged him and planned to sacrifice him. Or some shit like that. They told him a lot of things and he stupidly nodded to get everything over with. If his medicated self had only listened, he could have provided a better story, a better lie. But what he had most likely said had made him sound… Insane. And here he was to prove his worth. Seated in a circle to begin an orientation.

"My name is Gary Lester," he'd say when called upon, turning to face forward in his chair for the first time in that whole hour. His hair was cut now, face framed only by his lack of dignity. Those tired blue eyes unsettling to those who stared long enough. "And apparently, so I been told… I got some problems."

 ** _[_** ✞ ** _]_**

November was always an awkward time got Gary. He had been so sure he had allergies since he was little, and he remembered being yelled at for sneezing so much. But on the off days at the center, when he was actually allowed to walk around on his own, he sat outside in the fenced off lot. It served as a playground for the younger patients, even though they were well above the age to play in a sandbox or anything. It also served as a garden of sorts, but the flowers were long since wilted and neglected, much like a row of vegetables someone proved they'd take care of. Maybe it was the occasional glance of life growing in the cracks of the pavement that let him breathe easier, left him to wonder how different things were.

There was the Internet to figure out, for one, no longer a concept or a dream. Computers were small, the televisions bigger, and radio was now an outlet for more anger and political bullshit. He was hung up on everything, the only one really smiling with the lunch menu changed or the power went out to leave them in an eerie darkness. He welcomed anything and everything and was beyond relieved to be a part of it. As a living human being.

After a year of behaving and relearning his ways, often introduced to new patients as someone who had recovered better, cleaner, the safe walls came crashing down, and Gary was reminded of who, or what, he was.

It began during one of the rolling blackouts. Older patients had long since developed better sight to the darkness. Gary wandered aimlessly through dark halls, hoping to get back to his room to avoid a circle meeting, until he tripped over something. Unable to determine what it was he had stumbled across with the lack of light, he felt around.

A body. Not a large one. They weren't breathing, he couldn't even find a pulse. They were cold too, as if lying there for hours. Where others would pull away horrified, Gary kept his hands there. What was he waiting for? These past few days had been lacking any excitement, but the silence had come to a head and burst. He felt his own scream building in his throat, but it came out as a quiet yelp.

The body stirred under his hands, remaining cold and lacking life. Oh, that was right. This was the same city his own putrid soul had been summoned. There were reports of missing bodies on the news, but this was a little too close to be admired as good work. Gary didn't let go. He forced the body down and focused on its movement. Erratic and unsure, irritated when restrained. Almost immediately, Gary felt the words if old on the tip of his tongue. Without realizing what he was doing, what he was saying, the capable mage in him began to summon the spirit to the body it had possessed. Here in the darkness, his spell only answered with thrashing, he remembered everything.

The lights flickered on, revealing unto Gary the body he had been working on. With the spell almost over, he figured it was as good as done, as the patient now lay still and breathing. They would be confined to that husk, no doubt fighting tooth and nail to destroy it and return to their own plane of existence. _Too fucking bad_ , thought Gary. _If I suffered, yer bloody well gonna_.

Over the course of a week, the patient that _had_ been named Aberdeen became a hurling, screaming mess. Plagued by nightmares and intense pain that could only be explained as psychological, they threw their body at the barred windows over and over. Gary would often watch from his seat in the hall, amused, often making a point of visiting his handiwork. The gang would have been proud. He wouldn't be just a sidekick, a nobody, just having a car and money to buy their time on the weekends. No, he would have been a hero! A hero of _sorts_ , to people of the ostracized community.

Despite all of this, he still found himself alone. There was no one to share his findings with, to share the truth behind Aberdeen's possession. The poor man was often forced into his bed and left twisting in his restraints until the skin blistered against leather. He often bled, weeped, kicked until his bed was crashing into another wall. As those agonizing days went by, Gary no longer felt like laughing along, and a few days later, Aberdeen was found dead in his best, body covered in self-inflicted wounds despite his hands remaining tied down. What would they tell his next of kin? They had sent him here to get better. Now they would be asked to identify a body that had seen better days before.

Gary only felt guilt now. How did John Constantine manage to live with himself all those years and claim to never feel any inkling of emotion? Sure, his old mate knew better, that the mage suffered day in and day out, but over the course of three decades, he had no doubt developed a shell around his heart. This was Gary Lester, the one who often had to be driven home and left in his front long if they partied too hard, if he accidentally drank too much or digested to many hard drugs. It was the reliance he had grown fond of, gently coaxing him into hopeless addiction.

It had been one man, and Gary was already regretting his hasty decisions. He often thought about going to one of the counselors, but he had fumbled with them before. They asked him about this "cult" he had been a part of and, when he attempted to deny their statements, the nurses treated him as… well, a mental case. That was why he was here in the first place: this vicious circle of self-loathing and getting nowhere no matter how many little cups he knocked back every morning at nine.

And so it went, day in and day out. People stopped talking about Aberdeen and what had happened to him. Gary would slow every time he passed that empty room, until a new patient was put into it. He then decided to avoid it all together, hoping he didn't become the one to the new blood what had happened in there, by impulse. It did weigh on him, but one morning he simply forgot about it. Figured there was time on the outside, whenever he got there, to tell others the crazy shit he _thought_ he saw. When he was allowed to up his dosage of medication, Gary began to wonder if magic had been just an illusion, in the eye of its beholder. Delusion.

It was what he began to believe until another body became a host.


	2. Survival

Halloween that following year, almost midnight, and he heard thumping through the walls. Due to his behavior, he had earned a room to his lonesome; his own bathroom, shower schedule, and a nice little view of the community library across the street- one he often dreamed of visiting and wearing glasses in, maybe pretending he was in college, studying- but it wasn't just the thumping like before. The lights were already out in the halls, night lights-lining opposite walls so a thin beam of light peeked under each door.

When the thumping stopped, Gary sat up in his bed. _Footsteps_. Passing by, altering the thin beam. A shadow stood present in front of his door and Gary held his breath. Almost ten seconds of this, his head beginning to ache, finally giving a slight wheeze when the footsteps continued down the hall.

 _Shit_.

Gary lept out of his bed, as silent as he could manage- _who would he be alerting? Surely not the_ staff _at this point_. He knelt by his door to listen, feeling a rush of cold air meet where his hands touched the tile. With a shuddering breath, Gary sat up. This wasn't normal but it was as familiar as the days he had left behind in the 80s. No Aberdeen, not a possession. But a visiting. A haunting? Well how very _suitable_ for the time of year!

Trying his door, he found it unlocked. This was a first, but then again he hardly tried to escape. This hospital felt more like a home the more he realized how much the outside world had outgrown him. Once the door was open, he found the room awash with a blue light. Each door had been marked by a sigil, salt left in a half ring from one side of the door jam to the other.

There was a silent unlike any he had experienced at this hour of night. The glow felt alive, causing the hairs on Gary's arms to stand up on end. It was electric, but silent, drifting through his hall and not sure what it was searching for. It was foolish to follow, to step out of his own circle, skittering salt under his heels as he went. Nothing happened, not right away, and he was left alone to stand there, staring down the darkness of the wing. Had someone gotten up and left? Did he feel the need to follow?

The triumphant mage in his heart told him yes, and he followed. Not sure as to where, but John always felt drawn toward the unknown, and maybe Gary had more to him than anyone else had led on. A capable mage with capable survival skills, only given to him when he was in a state of panic. So rather than pissing himself and hiding away, he stopped in each salt ring down the hall, observing the sigil carved into the doors. All unique in their own way, hastily and crudely drawn, but holding up their end of the protection purpose.

His hairs remained standing on end until he reached the corner that led into the dining hall. The blue light, not exactly coming from a particular source, did not extend any further down this way. Gary could hear a scraping along the tile. Something hard and with a jagged end, dragging against the floor in slow, heavy intervals. It was the sound of limping. He peeked around quickly, only catching the glimpse of white, possibly one of the patients in uniform. The dragging stopped. Gary was sure he had been seen. But it quickly picked up, at a faster pace, _away_ from him. So he could breathe easy for a moment.

"Hello, what's _this_? What you doin' outta your room?"

He doesn't _want_ to look, absolutely sure he is going to be seconds away from being dragged into his bed, forced to convince himself he hadn't seen a thing- Thankfully the voice is not addressing him, rather the patient that is heard stumbling now, rushing their visitor. There is a thunk of metal, the scrape of bone, but the straggler doesn't seem to be done. Gary peeked around the corner, suddenly unable to breathe. The entire hospital around him seems to be warping. Those still in their beds, tucked away and safe, are lucky to be oblivious to all of this madness. The blue light was beginning to fade, to follow the sounds. There was no going back now, so Gary followed it warily.

All the way into the cafeteria, where someone stood atop one of the tables. They fell into a crouch, one hand out toward the patient who couldn't figure out how to follow him around all the scattered chairs. Gary could feel his body starting to go numb, thoughts swimming.

"I'm addressin' the entity inside you now," they said, and Gary's attention snapped forward. He knew who to be in this situation, cowering on the other side of the wall, fingers digging into the paint and eyes frozen to watch, experience this beatnik exorcism in all its glory. Words became harsh, spinning into Haitian ritual commands. The body arched and snarled, head snapping. The spirit wasn't going down without a fight and, if it had the chance of losing, it wanted to take the possessed down with it.

But this was Halloween. The nastiest of demons and spirits clawed at the walls between their world and the living on this days, all in hopes to be the one chosen for the summonings. Children out in the woods would be found with their entrails strewn about; stray dogs found with their throats cut, chickens torn to pieces, students walking into class the next day with bruises and bandages on their arms. No one knew exactly what they were walking into until they were walking into it. And people in this facility were already in a weakened state. If the power of pretty words could sway them, there was chance fighting their own demons. Aberdeen stood to reason.

Gary didn't know what to do. Aberdeen had fought until he had been torn to bits from the inside out. Gary hadn't performed any exorcism on him, but was seeing the same results in front of him. It was killing the patient either way, but the spell continued, causing the body to contort and break its own bones. They were more than just suffering…

" _Kite veso sa a epi retounen nan mond ou. Pa_ _bondye_ _, mwen mande ou a-_ "

Gary let out a cry and ram into the cafeteria head-long, right between the vessel and its provoker, and rammed his shoulder into the safety glass of the fire extinguisher. From behind it, he pulled out the axe and whirled around, much to the surprise of his other two companions in the room. The spell interrupted, the possessed now turned their attention back to the man on the table. The blue light breathed with Gary's panic, attempting to slow him down. It worked, but only for a moment, before he shuffled forward and gave the axe a swing. With a screech of metal against bone, and that of the body, he found he had buried the heel of the blade into their leg. And now it was stuck.

"Shit-"

He shook the haft, wriggled, twisted, but only to the amusement of the old gods watching him struggle. While any human way be down, the possessed only reeled and threw themselves on Gary. Seeing their face now- a teenage boy by the name of Glen, sweet kid, always quiet, a bit of a pushover- he wanted to pick up where that spell left off, almost regretting his panic to get the insanity over with.

Gary held their face away, screaming for help. Teeth gnashed and white eyes rolled to glare down at him. The man who had been working his magic before now only sat and watched the display. Gary was left shrieking for his help, only left unanswered. When Glen, the poor boy, twisted out of Gary's clumsy hands and got a mouthful of his throat, he was absolutely sure this was how he was going to go out. On Halloween, throat torn, leaving the world as he had arrived in it- crying and pissing himself.

Then a mighty blow knocked Gary back to reality. The teeth in his neck loosened, Glen's jaw slack. Gary opened one eye, the other, turning to see the blade of the axe had split open the side of the boy's skull. Blood and bits of brain splattered into his mouth, but he had to recover enough to react and spit out. Then in a moment he gurgled, shoved the body off of him and held his own throat, furiously spitting and gagging. There were a few pools around them both. Some blood, some other bodily fluids. Gary's hands could barely hold his own bleeding throat and speak at the same time. His knee buckled and knocked together, the rush of embarrassment of his own accident superseding the face he was in pain. And he looked for the man responsible for poor Glen's execution, finding him on another seat, lighting a cigarette.

"Always like _you_ t' run headfirst into shit ya didn't know a thing about, Gaz."

Now… when you were a mage, you weren't allowed to pretend it was a fairy tale and call it destiny. There was a much more realistic and harrowing word for your comeuppance at any time and it was called " _fate_ ". A grim and nasty word, never letting you decide your path. It was laid out for you and Gary should have known his own gnarled and dirty of a trail led back to John Constantine. In the two years and a half years he had been in this facility, the only time he had remembered the man's name was when he was revelling over Aberdeen's binding. Then the man had died and Gary thought know more about the bastard. _Either of them_.

And now, here he sat, as Gary really should have expected. Thinking back, the hall as riddled with his handiwork, but he had been too frightened (and for good reason) to think clearly. The voice, the posture, it all came into focus now, and here he sat with wet trousers and hands still clamped around his bleeding throat. _How much time had passed?_ John was just staring at him. _Didn't he have questions too, for_ _Gary_ _? Wasn't he going to poke fun that the man had pissed himself once again, but at least he didn't get away without at least one scratch? Or was he honestly not surprised?_

After all, why should Gary be? John arrived when spooks did. Halloween was that night of infinite possibilities. It was always their big party night, but one they still kept on the downlow.

"I- I made a-" It only hurt to talk, and he made a pained face instead. John let out a sound of disapproval, zippo lighting _clinking_ shut. His cigarette remained unlit and even from where Gary sat, he _knew_ it was John's usual brand. _Old habits die hard, eh,_ _mate_? He muttered an amused laugh, immediately wrapping both hands around his throat. This was all a mistake, not just thinking he could help out. Aberdeen, being foolish enough to be closer to the surface, close enough to become a summoning prop.

"As usual, huh? Eyes bigger than yer stomach? Christ, Gaz, two minutes back in my life and you're the same as you were when you left it." John gave up on the cigarette, flicking it away and getting up to yank the dead body away from Gary to examine it. _He was just a kid_ , Gary wanted to say. _I only wanted to cripple him, not_ _ **kill**_ _him_. John just treated him like a piece of meat now, hand against Glen's split forehead and muttering his banishment spell before the demon jumped to the next able host. "Just let a professional do his work."

"Who _called_ you here?"

John glanced over, still muttering under his breath. When he was finished, he sat back on his haunches and began to glare Gary down. It no doubt worked, Gary dropping his eyes like any other submissive dog would.

"It was in the paper that some guy here went out the way the weak-willed do. They didn't wanna call in a priest to perform a shoddy exorcism, and in case they were wrong, this was a little cheaper. Yanno, for me to just _show_ the fuck up." He took out his lighter again, spilling a cross along the body before lighting it. Gary let out a yelp and shoved back against the wall. In all his years of seeing his own horrors in Hell, the lack of inhumanity he was finding above ground was sinister.

"And for fuck's sake, Gaz. Go clean yerself up."

" _Fuck_ you, Constantine."

Something about the savage tone must have offset John, who slowly turned to look at his former friend. Had he forgotten who he was talking to altogether? An old friend, a comrade, once dead by his own hands? Gary's consent to be a part of his magical shenanigans aside, he had suffered and been trapped in Hell because of it, serving some shadow of his best mate. Gary glared right through, biting back his tears as he stood up to leave. Surely the ruckus and the shouting would have called attention to the overnight staff, but they had stayed alone together for long enough.

"All these years of me bein' dead and for what? For _you_ to have the glory and all the fame, claiming to feel weighed down by the consequences of killin' off all your mates. We all went to ta the same place and you know it- you saw what became of us all! Lost, _wretched_ fuckin' souls!"

"Now, Gaz-"

But the look on Gary's face shut him up: the corners of his mouth drawn down so far it was an almost laughable-looking frown, eyes wide and apprehensive of John Constantine. While he had done his absolute best to refrain from crying openly, tears streaked through the blood on his face. He was distraught, holding his own arms now in a hug.

"There was never anyone around for me ta says things would get better, or worse, ta tell me I'd make it out at least alright! No, because ya thought me dad gave me everythin' in the world that I was happy! I-I just wanted ta be useful, John… thirty-five years ago, right now… and I try and I can't do shite for ya. Then ya just shove it in me fuckin' face that I'm _pathetic_. Yer some bloody disciple to a cult, nothin' more."

It was a considerable lecture, but Gary felt his mouth go dry. He'd insult monsters and demons alike during his time in Hell, and he knew what followed such terrible accusations. John opened his mouth but his mouth remained hung open. Gary, his soaked pants, and his pride marched out of the cafeteria. Even if he never saw John Constantine again, and this was the fate he had been dealt for staying here, binding Aberdeen, that would be fine. If he spent the rest of his life out in this asylum with the rehabilitation wing, he would be fine with. He'd die with a smile on his face if it meant he could keep the one moment he stood up to John Constantine forever. A quiet, secret memory, that only the dead eyes of Glen would have seen.

May the kid rest in peace and all that shite.

The blue light in the hallways were gone, but the salt remained on the floor and runes in the door. Gary absently touched the one on his door, giving a tired sigh. Had John he was in the room, he probably would have had second thoughts on saving his sorry hide. Would he have, in fact, stopped in to say hello? Missed his old mate? They had been, on some level, still tolerable friends through the years, Gary as the messenger no one could shoot. John as some savior he figured he was doing some good for. But killing a kid like that? Maybe they had both panicked… maybe neither of them had grown up at all.

Gary shook it from his head and his shoulder, just getting inside so he could change his piss-soaked clothes. He knew trying to flush them away would only get him into trouble. So many other patients had prove this. So he bundled up the pants and threw them into the bathroom. The heat was turned off after eleven, discouraging those with a shower to try and use it after hours. At this point, however, Gary didn't give two shits about anything right now. To get the smell off him, the piss and the blood and tears, he'd endure the cold water, eventually going numb and letting his hair hang down. Oh, it needed a trim. He could see a counselor about that.

 _Happy thoughts, happier thoughts._ _Normal_ _thoughts_.

He let out a choked sobs, arms lifting to catch him as he fell forward against the fall under the shower head. Cold water burned old scars, ones brought forth from the depths of Hell. Nurses still assumed these were self-inflicted. Claw marks, teeth in his arms. Clear signs of his own torture. Forearms riddled with track marks, ones he could see now as he lifted his head. By his lonesome, he was allowed to cry. There was nothing wrong with being afraid, everyone told him. His mother, dropping him off at school, lost souls in the Underworld, seemingly content with their damnation. All fine and dandy for them, but not for a young, foolish Gary Lester who spent any free time he could clawing at the underbelly of the world above.

In Hell, you could create your own types of highs, whether that meant becoming numb to your own flesh being peeled from your face or not. In a shower at three in the morning, sobbing under a stream of freezing water, one was really only left with the sinking realization that they still had nothing to live for. Staying here was only making him feel and look better, but for what purpose? What _family_? He had no visitors. John was that- mistake he wish he could erase at the moment. Wishing he hadn't woken up, or at least taken the event that had unfolded to heart as a fear and stayed in his room. He was useless, he was. _He was_.


	3. Domestication

To say life returned to normal was to say Gary could forget the last forty years of his non-life. He went to the same group discussion, slouched in his chair or otherwise ignoring their talks. If he was called upon, he wouldn't react, keep his chin on the back of his chair. His "condition" as they called it worsened, noting him down for an onset seasonal depression. They gave him new medication, but that wasn't going to stop him from not wanting to be a part of a group he no longer fit in.

His thoughts were consumed by that one night. Most of the staff and healthier patients (at least ones who didn't need constant supervision) were invited. Gary, being part of that small percentage, had tagged along, if just to say a few words of respect; but the temptation to blurt out out the truth was too great that when eulogies were being offered, he froze in his seat and kept his head down. It had been a closed casket ceremony, but every time Gary shut his eyes, he imagined what his parents' reactions may have been to that face held together by glue and shoddy packing tape. Gary was so far in on those thoughts, he uttered a pained laugh. Now, had he been a healthier man, this would be frowned upon, but a nurse coddled him, told him things were going to be okay.

Glen's murder was looked upon as an accident and within the following week, no one spoke about him (or remembered him). Aside from Gary, who was better off being the only one in this situation. He hadn't made friends in the facility, there was no one for him to sit down with at lunch and gossip about what nurses had dismissed as a greater tragedy. A possible act of outrage, they called it. No longer murder, but an _accident_. As if poor Glen had fallen on the blade of the axe himself. As if an honor student fallen on hard times could _really_ be that clumsy. In this building, however, it was better for the sane to be in denial than face their own truths. They had the mentally unstable to account for being idiots among them, the ones with harder lives, harder everything. When really, if a family paid enough for a child to be locked away here so they didn't have to deal with them, they would make it so.

Gary liked to imagine that's why he remained here, instead of checking out and starting his life on the outside over. Being legally dead, it was hard to bounce back. His parents were dead, that much he had found out. All their money had gone to memorial funds, one for their own son, Gary was surprised to discover. Thankfully established in another country altogether, so no one gave him looks or thought twice about it here in the States. He was a nobody, and could begin as a no one, build himself up- but the effort that with all of that?

He preferred the back of his chair slowly putting him into a chokehold any day.

 ** _[_** ✞ ** _]_**

Spring was on its way, a few patients subjected to outside work to earn a little pocket money; sweeping back snow and dirt, gathering trash that may have been found underneath, and otherwise looking like paragon patients of the facility. They could be seen from where they worked, looking very much like prisoners, but prisoners allowed to wave and freely converse with those on the other side of the fence.

Because of his previous behavior, Gary was not chosen to get any fresh air, or develop any social skills. It was rather crippling to watch from the other side of the window, wrapping in a blanket and watching desperately as his breath fogged up the glass. That only bit of freedom was leaving his room in the morning, touching the new paint on his door, the faint outline of the sigil there and not forgotten. Now and then he'd feel grains of salt under his socks, and he could have sworn others saw the guilt in his expression when he walked past a photo of Glen. Photos of his crime scene always remained on top of the supervisor's death.

It felt normal to have a few people still concerned, but Gary was long past feeling his own pocket of guilt for this, feeling responsible. His clothes, found covered in blood, were peculiarly overlooked. Sometimes his scars blistered and bled from the heat, perhaps they wanted to keep this ex-cultist as their least possible suspect. _He was always so quiet, so kind to others_...

"Gary? Gary, you have a visitor."

He didn't lift his face from the glass. Honestly, he hoped he was stuck there until the snows went away and the sun came out. That could bring out a few, much-needed laughs. The nurse gently grasped his shoulder, pleading that he come away and listen to her. Gary nodded absently to whatever she was telling him, getting out of his chair and falling her to the guest room. Now, why didn't he take into consideration that John Constantine might be back to finish him off, or finger him for the slaughter of Glen? Why didn't he feel _fear_ for these possibilities? Possibly because the fright of actually seeing the man there, arms crossed and a clipboard pressed to his chest by another nurse.

"Sir, we can't let you release the patient without filling out the necessary-"

"Well, stuff the necessary, will ya?" He held up a flattened box of Silk Cuts in her face, the nurse regarding what she was prompted to see. She tutted and took the clipboard away, rolling her eyes to the lady who had escorted Gary into the room. This particular trick had never worked on Gary, who threw him a look for abusing his nurses. Perhaps he was less receptive to illusions since his years of being plagued hallucinations.

Gary shook the nurse of his shoulder, standing toe to toe with John Constantine. The man was smirking, proud of himself. While he should be angry, punch this man in the face, he felt- inclined to apologize all of a sudden. At least he _knew_ not to act on these impulses, just letting his fists clench at his sides.

"Wha'? Not gonna thank me for springing you outta this joint? I think you deserve it for helpin' me in Octo-"

His hand shot up, index finger pressing John's nose up at the point, John seemingly horrified by this act. Gary should have hit him, but with all the power he possessed, he managed to shut his mouth for him. There was no thanks to be _given_ , not even the whole time when he was forced to pack what little belongings he had collected over the past three years. Not when John kept rambling on the in the back seat of the cab, leaving Gary on silent mode and clutching his backpack, twisting back in his seat to watch to watch the facility become smaller and smaller- and then they turned a corner, and his life turned over on its back.

John's flat was as expected in the big city. Small, cheap, absolutely littered about. Some years ago, Gary would have been able to settle down in this like a rat among the garbage, but after being pampered in a pristine facility for so long, he preferred standing in a spot where he could see the floor. John Constantine had let himself go over the years. What happened to that clean cut man looking to make a lasting first impression? His eyes were dim and jaw scruffy. Things he hadn't seen in the light but felt were more vulnerable than ever before.

"I killed Aberdeen," Gary found himself saying, voice a weak whisper. His bag was set down amongst the mess. When he looked up, he saw John standing there with his jaw clenched. "I did what I _had_ to, t'protect myself and the people around me. I wasn't selfish- not like you, but I laughed when that man died. And when Glen was taken, I wasn't lookin' for another tragedy, not anymore blood on me hands."

"I didn't think you were gonna charge back into my life with an _axe_ , Gaz."

"Are you admitting you panicked?!" His voice rose to a trembling shriek. With his hands unoccupied, Gary wasn't sure what to do with himself. "Because you ruined my time there! My, my _healing_!"

"Stuff yer bloody healin', mate. You prove not useless to me once, I spring ya out, and get this guff as thanks. You're _welcome_ , yanno. I'm not gonna leave a mate of mine in his own bloody funeral home!"

"Oh!" Gary exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "So I _am_ your friend now? Spend some ten minutes critiquing my old lifestyle over me tryna save your sorry arse from a walkin' ticking timebomb! His name was Glen, by the way! He had two feckin' sisters and a mum!"

So this was them fighting, prowling back and forth in the flat and kicking things in their way. In no means did they intend to close in on each other, or use any shady magic to win the other in their favor. Thirty years completely apart and they had some catching up to do. They screamed and shouted, threw things and switched languages often. There was no getting to one another, not even when their voices cracked and tears tracked down their face. Gary was the first to fall back onto the couch, fingers carding through his hair. Growing again, but he was far from letting it get back to that gruesome length of tucking it behind his ears.

The din was quelled when Gary looked, fingers over his mouth. Was he always the first and only one to cry, openly express any emotion. John stared back, bottom lip bit back in submission.

"Why don't you _care_?" Gary asked with the last shred of volume he had left. A sharp breath followed and he hid his face back into his hands. John sat beside him, keeping his troublesome trap shut. Decades of years missing between them. Communication had been the least bit important for their rag-tag team of occultists. They partied, screamed into a mic, did their drugs and spent their time high or passed out. There was a reason communication lacked. What they saw, had suffered, was better left unsaid and in your back pocket. No one knew that better than Gary Lester, now crying once more into his tattered sleeves.

John rested a hand on his old mate's shoulder, giving a squeeze. For the rest of that night, they simply sat in one another's company, not saying very much else at all. They were spent, emotionally drained, and no doubt they'd be losing their voices in the next couple of days (let alone receiving some noise complaint). And somewhere around three in the morning, the two were left slouched against one another, arms entwined limply together, and asleep.

 ** _[_** ✞ ** _]_**

The next few months rolled by quietly. John claimed to be in town searching for work. There had been a spike in activity downtown where groups of kids claiming to be part of the occult would gather and practice rituals from old books they had found, or been given as gifts by mysterious strangers in cloaks. The bought books were usually rubbish and their words broken Latin riddled with informal Spanish phrases here and there; and the most the kids got out of their passionate readings was the sensation of being watched.

It was the scripture that was hand-delivered by men without faces that worried professionals like John Constantine (and Gary Lester maybe, who had been allowed to take a backseat to his dealings with the paranormal these days). His connections weren't shady, but obviously not fond of John in the slightest; they tolerated him, as usual, and their eyes would glance to Gary and immediately not trust this poorly-dressed rat either. Gary Lester, standing there with hands stuffed deep in his pockets, mouthing "wow-oh-wow" at the size of a Sanctorum as John chatted it up with some "good doctor" to get the skinny on the cults.

They'd be on their way, Gary told to keep his hands where others could see them when the shadows started to lengthen between buildings, soon leaving them in eternal shadows. Life was jaded here in the city, so different than his shut-up little life in the facility. He was given a cell phone, taught how to drive again (without a license, _again_ ), and stayed up late catching up on all the cinema he had missed. To John Constantine, it was endearing; to Gary Lester, he remained as exhausted and tired-eyed as ever.

The fights were over, but it didn't mean their conversations and gossip flourished. The two men rarely spoke civilly indoors, often breaking to their separate rooms once they were home. One door would lock and the other would feel safer in their own skin. It wasn't a matter of trust, but of tolerance; two roommates that had outgrown each other but still sought out some companionship- and yet, they were as if two lovers that had broken up but refused to let the world known of their personal failures. Delicate creatures with skin that only _looked_ unscatched.

One morning in particular broke boundaries for the two, not having spoken to one another (directly) in a week. They sat across from one another in a diner. Gary held coffee between his frail hands, a few bandages wrapped around his fingers. John had his tea off to the side, occupied with a book written in a dead language or other (Gary no longer found himself fascinated).

"You never did anything wrong," Gary said. His voice was stronger now, accent mellowed out from listening to walks off all life in the city. There wasn't an inkling of expression on his face, pale eyes staring at John, very nearly through him. And it took a moment for John to look up, reciprocate this wide-eyed stared. "An' I get that now. Puttin' the blame on you just because I didn't understand was gettin' too full of myself."

"I guess that's… very mature of you to say, Gaz."

They stared at one another a little while longer, lost in silently exchanging memories they had one being together with one another, without the Hell of demons, sacrifices, anything too insane. Just playing music together in one of their father's garages, sneaking into concerts and meeting chicks together. There was very little messing with dark magic, really, only using few illusions to persuade their way into gigs and into pants. John and Gary had always met in the middle, almost attached at the hip. Then when it came to their "powers" the weaker of the two would straggle behind everyone else. And now, he had to wonder how much he had been left out of.

Gary slid his hand across the table, hovering over John's, who looks down. With a thin smile, he pressed his hand up into the touch. A small, innocent gesture. Something John knew how to use as his strength, to show others that in his own little fucked-up way, he was capable of some compassion and love. As rare as it was for the man to say out loud, or to even express in his stubborn face. Gary took his hand back and they returned to their silence.

 ** _[_** ✞ ** _]_**

From then on things seemed to be a little bit better between the two. Still without conversation, their misadventures together became bonding time. John began to call upon Gary for magical supervision. He proved to be a powerful binder before and, with his time in Hell, did hold some extensive knowledge on the newer strains of demonic possession. The times were changing and John Constantine, as stubborn of a lone wolf that he was, was finally calling upon the correct help.

Being the friend of a man who often sacrificed his connections for the sake of survival, Gary Lester of course figured there was something suspicious about this behavior. Unfortunately for him, these paranoid thoughts took a backseat to his overwhelming satisfaction of being included. This meant more than being picked for team leader at the facility, or back in the day when he was forced to remain sober he could drive everyone else's sorry asses home.

However, them working together brought a sense of peace to the city. Fear subsided in many residents. Crime, for lack of a better term, decreases significantly through the year. Gary finally gained a bit of healthy weight, managed to drive out on his own and figure out a life for himself. When he wasn't around John, or John was elsewhere on his own anyway, he tried to remaster his artistic abilities. There was peace, finally, in both his head and his heart. He sat still through an interview and within another week, he was helping design and paint murals on the side of a church. Children would watch him work, even assist, and he felt like a healthy member of society again (not like he knew what that was before anyway).


End file.
